Fishtailing
by mouhitoris
Summary: Modern AU: Atem's a pool-shooting "bad boy" who actually has no idea how you're supposed to go about being a bad boy, and Yuugi's just your average back-of-the-class nerdscum. Unlikely friendships/romance and all that cliche bullhonkey. Puzzleshipping and side Thiefshipping.
1. a prologue

**fishtailing (a prologue)**

**A/N: **Hi, I'm Amelia, and welcome to the first part of this piece of shit story! Scribbled down one sentence on my notes in Chemistry class and when I got home, started typing. Concept grew out of control, what _else_ is new. And we have the prologue to what will hopefully become a long story. Reviews and critique are mucho appreciated, friend-os.

**warnings: **none yet, unless you count a brief drug reference & a butt-ton of swearing  
**rating: **(so far) T  
**pairings: **puzzleshipping all the _way _motherfuckers

* * *

One night, a night after a full day of rain, Atem Dogkeep beats up Yuugi Mutou. Atem's always thought that "Yuugi" was a weird name for a kid in Texas to have in the first place (never mind that Atem's name is _Atem), _(it's probably Spanish or something), and also he has money for the bus so Atem could get back home, considering it's half past one in the morning and Atem's getting a little tired, so roughing him up like sandpaper and taking the cash just seems like the natural order of things. The big fish eating the little fish. You know?

Ah, yes. The reason Atem, 15-year-old ripped-muscle-shirt-wearing bad influence extraordinaire, is out in a slightly rough part of the city at 1:30 AM _in the first place _is this: he was shooting pool with some friends. Honest to God. On a beat-up pool table they dragged into a warehouse that no one ever really locks or checks. To be truthful as a dying hound, Atem hates his friends, like _really_ hates them (one insists on being called 'Bakura' and Atem still doesn't know his real name, and then there's Malik), but they play games and no one else does. Except for Yuugi Mutou. But he's a pussy, or so it seems to Atem, so you cut your losses. The pool session lasted long into the night, then Bakura split, and Atem has left Malik alone in the warehouse to do heroin or murder people or whatever the fuck kind of psycho shit he does when Bakura and Atem aren't around, so here Atem is. And it's been raining the whole day _and_ all night, so he keeps wetting his expensive shoes in _puddles._

He's walking at a brisk clip towards the bus stop with his knife visible and don't-fuck-with-me when he realizes, not after long, that he didn't bring any cash with him aside from the bus fare it took to get here. This realization causes him to swear loudly and kick the side of a building, because he's never been good with anger. Someone inside the building (it might be an apartment?) yells at him, and he almost yells "SORRY" back before remembering that bad boys don't say sorry. So he storms around a little bit, unsure of what to do. The later he gets back, the angrier his mother is going to get. Not that he cares, of course, I mean, rebellious boys, their hair in the wind, they don't _care _what their mothers think. _Do they?_ Of course not. So he's not upset. It's just, he might get grounded or some dumb shit, and that's always _such_ a hassle.

So he wanders, and he wanders, and then Yuugi Mutou shows up, out of the blue, a goddamn boy marvel. He looks sad, is what occurs to Atem most, and harried, and like he's looking for someone. Atem sees him when he's passing through the streetlight. The stark yellow light makes his skin look porcelain-translucent. As is usual for back-of-the-class gaming-otaku nerd-scum, his clothes are baggy and his hair is messy, and he's tossing dice by himself or something as he walks. Atem can't see. But he _can_ see some bills haphazardly thrust into Yuugi's pocket, so Atem pockets his knife and drags Yuugi by his gimp collar into the nearest alley (amid protests of _hey, hey, what're you doing, leggo!_) and sinks his knuckles into his classmate's jaw, watches the blood spray out like confetti. After a slow-motion tango tasting the air Yuugi crumples like an empty pinata, and Atem snags some money for the bus, then a little bit more.

Atem is halfway back to the bus stop, whistling cheerfully, when he realizes that Yuugi Mutou was wandering around a slightly rough part of the city at 1:30 AM. Yuugi Mutou. We are talking about the kid who plays fucking _Duel Monsters_. AKA the nerdiest of all trading card games, you idiot, reserved for the dweebiest of the dweebs. And his parents are probably loaded, given all the rare cards Yuugi has (not that Atem would know anything about that—he just _overhears!_). Yuugi Mutou was here.

Atem backtracks through alleys and garbage cans full of water, fishtailing around pipes that look like broken bones. His strong point is his agility, and when he moves quick, he feels one with the city. It's impossible to see the stars in here, especially with this kind of cloud cover, but the air feels cool and damp, and Atem feels alive. Like, really alive.

When he's back where Yuugi was, Yuugi is gone. This makes him angry again, for reasons he can't explain, and he kicks the alley wall once more. This time he expects someone to yell at him, but no one does. So he sits on the damp pavement, because he's bored and a little tired, and then he hears Yuugi's voice.

"Are you okay?"

It takes a little while for the voice to register: breathy, high pitched, and kind of like a little boy's, but cracking, sending splinters through a man's. It irritates Atem. Why is Yuugi's voice so irritating? In the whole time they've shared the same homeroom, Atem has only heard it maybe twice. But it bothers him. Atem looks around and sees Yuugi's silhouette in the mouth of the alley, like a tongue. He rolls his shoulders.

"You asking me if _I'm_ okay? I just beat the shit out of you, man."

Yuugi shifts on his feet. "Didn't really beat the _shit_ out of me. Just made me bleed a little."

Atem rises quickly. "You want me to _actually _beat the shit out of you, then?"

"No, I'm fine! I'm fine, actually!"

Atem sits back down. He breathes heavy. Yuugi isn't really moving, aside from an occasional little shift. They sit in silence for a while.

"You gonna ask for your money back?" Asks Atem.

"No. You probably needed it to get home. You didn't take all of it, anyway."

Atem considers that. Then he remembers the reason he came back in the first place.

"Hey, what the fuck are you doing out here in like the middle of the night? Do you even know what part of town this is?"

"Yeah, I know what part of town this is."

"What you doing _anywhere_ this late at night! You're Yuugi Mutou! You don't have a life."

"I was looking for Jounouchi."

Atem rolls the weird name around in his mouth. "Who the fuck is," he tests it out by saying it, "_Jounouchi._"

"My friend." There's a pause, so Atem expects him to elaborate, so Yuugi does. "He's in Chemistry with me. We hang out sometimes."

"You have people you hang out with?"

"Yeah, I do." The ending of the sentence is enunciated and deliberate. Yuugi waits. "Do you?"

"Are you trying to make fun of me?"

"I'm not, I-"

"Of course I have people I hang out with."

"Yeah, but do you like them?"

"Of course I like them, man, what the fuck you going on about."

But neither Yuugi nor Atem say anything after that.

After a little while, Atem gets up. The rain is starting again, each drop like a tiny pill. Atem names them in his mind. Walking back through the alley, he slips half of the money he took from Yuugi back into Yuugi's pocket. Before Yuugi realizes, Atem is long, long gone.


	2. pill bottle lid

**fishtailing: pill bottle lid**

**A/N: **Part two, buckaroos. The Thiefshipping was a surprise, I guess. Rating gets upped here, so.

**rating: **M  
**warnings: **very vague hinted-at allusion to self harm that you probably wouldn't even have noticed if i hadn't pointed it out  
**pairings: **Puzzleshipping, Thiefshipping.

* * *

They speak again in homeroom. It is probably a few days later, and Atem comes in with a couple bruises on his face and hands. Normally, he sits in the back of the class (like Yuugi), but on the opposite side of room, because the bad boys don't want to be bothered by the teacher, but neither do the outcasts. However, today, Atem sits directly behind Yuugi. This is the source of a bit of scandal amongst his friends.

"Atem, why the fuck ain't you sitting with us?" Says Bakura amidst the early-period classroom chatter. He's talking too fast. He's drumming his fingers too quickly on the desk and chewing manically, fast and hard, on the end of a mechanical pencil. The eraser snaps in half and Atem is pretty sure he swallows it. Bakura gets hyper like this sometimes. If he's secretly on some sort of drug, Atem doesn't know about it.

"I'm not sitting with you cause I'm not sitting with you, chill," says Atem, pulling into his seat all the way. He doesn't bother to bring a backpack to school: just one beat-up white binder with a few sheafs of loose leaf in it. Bakura is eyeing him suspiciously.

"You ain't trying on _purpose_ to sit with Yuugi, are you?"

"What? No, of course not," says Atem, even though he is, and he doesn't know why, and ten years from now he probably still won't know why the fuck he chose to sit next to Yuugi Mutou on the second day of November that year but he won't care because he'll be head over heels in the adventure of his life. He has a brief premonition about this but shakes it off.

"Cause I always thought you two was secret brothers or something."

"Secret brothers? The fuck?" Says Atem, laughing. "You've really lost it now, Kura, man."

"You call me Bakura, not," he draws out the nickname with distaste, "_Kura_. And what, secret brothers ain't so weird."

"What does that even mean, 'secret brothers?'"

But Bakura doesn't bother responding, because Malik yanks on his hair. Bakura yelps and elbows Malik in the face, half on reflex and half on punishment. "The FUCK was that for?!"

But Malik just laughs. Atem notes that Malik is wearing long sleeves again. He decides to turn his attention away from his two friends and, secretly, to Yuugi. Yuugi is shuffling a pack of playing cards under his desk. Atem looks down at it. Yuugi isn't very good at shuffling; there's the ace of diamonds, over and over again. But Yuugi is shuffling more out of compulsion than anything. He shuffles gracefully, too, with his lithe fingers; Atem gets a little entranced in it, but then the teacher starts talking, and Yuugi freezes and gently place the cards into his desk.

With the distraction of Yuugi's shuffling gone and Malik and Bakura bickering only quietly on the other side of the room, Atem is left to his own devices, and because he's not going to pay attention to the lesson, he decides to think about sex. He turns his face to the large window on the left side of the classroom, where he can see the bare trees and the first delicate hints of frost, and thinks about banging Anzu Masaki from English class, her pretty red moaning mouth in the pillows and his hips against her soft thighs. The little spark from her hand pushing him deeper into her. He'd talk dirty to her. He can tell she's _totally _submissive, would melt like butter in his hands.

Hearing Yuugi cough loudly calls him back to reality. Yuugi is double over in his chair, and the whole class turns as Yuugi has a minor coughing fit. Someone asks, feebly, if he needs to go to the water fountain. He shakes his head, holding up one hand. Atem closes his eyes and listens to the coughing. He can tell there's a song buried in it, a rhythm of some sort to the cough. The way the body expels dust and germs is a minor miracle, like someone painting stars on their collarbones, almost. Like stitches tattooed into the night sky—that's what Yuugi's coughing sounds like. Atem opens his eyes and watches Yuugi's face contorted in coughing, the grey light from the window on his jaw, making it translucent again, every vein pumping blood and keeping Yuugi's body in stasis and warm and alive. Atem wants to hear more of the beautiful cough, but then Yuugi stops coughing, and Atem's trance shatters and falls to the ground. Yuugi laughs awkwardly.

"Sorry," he says. "Swallowed some air."

The teacher starts talking again, and Atem turns to look out the window once more, wondering why he had such weird thoughts all of a sudden, but then Yuugi taps on his desk.

"You were looking at me," he whispers.

Atem pulls back. "Yeah, so?" He whispers back. "Everyone was, smartass."

"Well, you were looking at me in a way."

"In a way."

"Yeah, you were looking at me like," Yuugi swallows as he tries to think of how to phrase it, "like I was the bones of the planet Jupiter."

A pause.

"Dude, what the fuck?"

"Well, it's a metaphor."

"Yeah, it doesn't make any fucking _sense_."

The teacher interrupts. "Mr. Dogkeep, please stop your jabbering to Yuugi. We are discussing more important things."

Atem makes sure that the teacher can see him roll his eyes, but he tears a piece of paper out of his binder, borrows a pencil from the kid next to him, and pretends to take notes. Here is what he writes: _the bones of the planet Jupiter, the bones of the planet Jupiter, the bones of the planet Jupiter._

* * *

Yuugi doesn't ask him about his bruises until _after_ class. Atem is headed for his locker (spoiler alert: he doesn't keep anything in his locker except for games and candy) when Yuugi pulls up in stride next to him and says, "Hey, what happened to your face?"

"What happened to _yours_, man?" Asks Atem. He snorts a little at his own joke.

"No, I'm serious. Were you in a fight?"

"Why are you asking me? I don't know you."

"I'm just worried about you."

"Why the fuck're you worried about me? I don't _know_ you."

"I'm not allowed to worry about people?"

"If you worried about every idiot you saw on the street, you'd never stop worrying, man." They've arrived at Atem's locker. Yuugi's is on the other end of the hall, but he doesn't let on. Atem dials in the combination, furtively blocking Yuugi's view with his hand.

"It's just, you're pretty beat up. The counselor hasn't asked you about it or anything?"

"The counselor doesn't give a shit about me, man." Says Atem, swinging the locker door open. He grabs a box of Milk Duds, ripping it open with his teeth. He almost offers Yuugi one before he remembers that Yuugi is a total fucking loser, so he slams the locker door shut and scrambles the lock.

Yuugi is a little bit taken aback by this. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, she doesn't give a shit about me. Nothing approaching a shit. Not even an ant shit. She doesn't care about _anyone_. No one in this whole entire school. She's just here to get paid."

Yuugi studies the bruises on Atem's face. They're purple and blotchy, from directly under his left eye down to the right side of his jaw, and his nose looks almost broken. The lighting inside the school makes them look like watercolors. Yuugi wants to touch them.

"So how _did_ you get those bruises."

"Shouldn't you be getting to class?"

"How _did_ you get those bruises."

"Why am I talking to you, man."

Atem doesn't tell Yuugi how he got the bruises.

* * *

Bakura yanks Malik's jeans down. In the boys' bathroom stall, Bakura yanks Malik's jeans down, down, down. Malik is pressing his back up against the blue textured plastic stall wall, breathing light and quick, one of his hoodie sleeves coming rolled up. He prepares to bite the heel of his hand.

Bakura's mouth is like acrylic paints and piano paper. Malik squeezes his eyes shut and winces loudly, gulps, burying his teeth into his own skin. Bakura pulls back and hisses at him to _shut the fuck up, man,_ so Malik does, he stays very, very quiet. When he comes, his thin knees turn to jam and he slides slowly down the wall of the stall like a swatted fly, his eyes glassy from orgasm. Bakura crawls over and rakes his long chipped nails over Malik's bare thigh, making him wince again. No one comes into that bathroom for a while. Outside, it starts to sleet.


End file.
